


No Mountain You Won’t Climb Up

by myglassesaredirty



Series: I’ll Be Your Lighthouse (When You’re Lost at Sea) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, I mean I GUESS I could reference canon, Issues, PTSD, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, References to Depression, Runaway AU, Tony Stark Has A Heart, canon? who's she? I don't know her, more characters may be added, no but seriously in the wake of IW this is now canon divergent so, post-IW, why would i tho?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 08:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13853610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myglassesaredirty/pseuds/myglassesaredirty
Summary: He gets the call at noon one day: Peter Parker is missing.Missing. It’s not a word that goes with Peter Parker. And yet…He’s gone.





	1. Lies Made of Steel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Howlingdawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingdawn/gifts).



> How in the ever-living fuck do I have this many WIPs? This is technically…what, four? I have four now? Wait, no, FIVE. I have five WIPs.
> 
> In my own defense, I had this idea like, six months ago, so. I’m entitled to this fic.

He leaves in the darkness.

He doesn’t leave a note, nor does he leave any warning of his absence. The only difference between what was before and what remains now is the lack of the small duffel bag that has often remained stuffed in the corner of his closet.

He makes no noise when he sneaks out the window, and he shuts it quietly behind him. Once he turns around to face the city, he sees a lot of lights, a lot of busy people. In the city that never sleeps, he’s about to disappear.

Forever.

***

He’s sleeping soundly when he gets the call.

Usually, when May Parker calls him, it’s to yell at him for Peter’s late nights, his numerous injuries, or any variety of the sort.

So when he blinks himself awake, stretches, and squints at the clock, seeing that it’s noon, he’s a bit confused.

He rubs his eyes. “FRIDAY, answer call.”

“Is he with you?” Those are the only words out of May’s mouth as soon as the call connects.

Tony squints at the wall in front of him. When did he pass out? “Why would Peter be with me? Shouldn’t he be at school?”

“I called the school, and he’s not there. Is he with you?” May repeats forcefully.

Tony scrubs a hand over his face. “FRIDAY, run facial recognition. Is he anywhere in the compound?”

“No, boss.”

He sighs. “It’s a negative, May. Why? What’s wrong?”

“Has he been patrolling? Can you check his suit?”

Tony turns in his chair, and he pulls up the Spider-man suit schematics. “He hasn’t been in the suit since early last night, May. What’s wrong?”

“I already checked Ned’s place. Unless there was a party last night that I wasn’t aware of –”

Tony holds up a hand, well aware of the fact that May can’t see him. “May, what’s _wrong_?”

“I haven’t seen Peter all day today. He’s not at school, he’s not on the fire escape, I have no idea where he is. Tony, if you have my nephew –”

“I’m as in the dark as you are. Has he been bullied at school? Exhibiting serious signs of depression? Anxiety? PTSD?” Tony exits out of the suit schematics and opens a tab to research the symptoms of mental illness.

“Tony, I-I can’t deal with him being _dead_ , oh my God –”

“Let’s not jump to hasty conclusions here, May. He might just be playing a prank.”

“ _You’re_ the one who suggested mental illness!”

“Because it’s a possibility!” He runs his thumb over his bottom lip. “May,” he says slowly, carefully, “what do you think happened?”

“Kidnapping?” He can hear the tears in her voice, and he doesn’t want to admit that she’s probably right.

“Tony Stark’s protégé,” he mumbles to himself. “No wonder they go after him.” To May, he says, “I’m going to check video surveillance around Queens. Someone has to have seen something sketchy.”

“Call me if you find anything.”

“Hey, May?” he says before she hangs up. “File a missing person report. We might need more help.”

“Of course,” and once he hears the thickness in her voice, he hates himself just a little bit more for affirming her fear.

Peter’s gone. Missing. Not around. They can’t find him, and if someone’s trying to keep him from them…

Tony shakes his head. He can’t think of that. Not yet, not now. In a couple of hours, he’ll need to call Rhodey and Happy, but now, he just wants to scratch the surface. He wants to see where Peter might have gone.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, he has this voice that keeps whispering that something’s not right, it’s not a kidnapping, it’s not a violent threat. The voice persists, and it crawls up his spine, digging its talons into his shoulders, and it keeps suggesting things, suggesting that Peter chose this, that he is purposefully covering his tracks. But Tony shakes the voice from his skin, pushes it to the back of his mind, and he works. Works to put together all the pieces. Works to get his kid home safely.

Tony pulls up the suit schematics again, and he starts video surveillance from the minute Peter’s suit went offline. It’s boring, really, watching cars stop and go, but he can’t find anything connecting to Peter. He watches the footage once, twice, three times, and still, he finds nothing. Algorithms, expanded search, school surveillance, and it’s all for nothing. He comes away empty-handed.

His first instinct is to call Rhodey. His second is to look at subway footage, but even then, he knows he won’t find much. The kidnapper covered his tracks well.

So all Tony can do is wait. Wait and pray.

***

He left his phone back at his apartment.

He knew that Tony and May would try and track him through it. He’s not stupid. He knows how things work.

Peter glances over his shoulder and switches his duffel to his left hand. The only thing he has left from his Spider-man days are his old web-shooters, and he’s just waiting until he runs out of web fluid, and he’s finally able to leave behind his alter ego. It’s too much. He can’t handle it anymore.

He can’t handle waking up from nightmares and seeing the…the pity in May’s eyes, the hurt that lies beneath. He can’t handle panic attacks when he’s around Michelle and sometimes he hurts her.

(Not intentionally. Never intentionally.)

He sees the way it hurts her to see him hurt, and he hates that feeling, feeling like he’s failed another person. He can’t handle the trembling worry in Ned’s voice over the comm, trying to bring Spider-man back to the land of the living. He can’t handle Tony looking at him like a father looks at a son whom he no longer recognizes, and it was at that moment that Peter knew he needed to pack up and leave.

But more than that, more than the people he’s hurting and the family he loves, he needs to get away from the city. He needs to get away from cramped buildings and skyscrapers, away from masses of water and the site of destruction, so much destruction. All he wants is to escape the bad memories that rise in the forefront of his brain, that crash against his skull, begging over and over again to be heard. Those memories scream loudly, scream so often that he can’t hear anything else, and he wants out, he wants them gone.

Tony said therapy would help. Tony was wrong.

Therapy can’t help. Not with what he’s seen, not with what he’s done. Not with the failures he’s committed, the people who have died in front of his eyes.

The sun is trying to peek through the clouds, but the clouds are too thick. Rain threatens to fall, and as the rumbles of thunder roll over the side of the highway, Peter looks up to the sky and warns the god of thunder. Warns him to stay far away, to let him be, to let him disappear. Warns him that if he breaks that promise, Peter will come looking for him, and he won’t show mercy. He’s tired. He’s done. It’s time to start a new life away from what he had.

He weaves between the edge of the road and the bordering fences. He walks across the highway when there are no cars, and he pulls up the hood of his jacket when he feels like he’s being watched. The day is long, and the sun hides behind gray. The warmth doesn’t penetrate down to the earth, and Peter zips his jacket as far as it will go. He’s prepared for this. He has money in his duffel (he swiped it from Tony. He tries not to think of how he stole from the man who did the most for him since Uncle Ben. He tries, but fails). In a month, when he crosses the border into Massachusetts, he will board a plane, and he’ll keep running. He’ll keep running until May and Tony are long gone, he’ll keep running until he’s reached the edges of the world, he’ll keep running until everyone forgets him and he’s allowed to be free.

Even as he keeps trekking on, he knows it’s a lot of running. It’s too much, and his family needs him.

But he’s not going back.

Lightning flashes, and rain begins to pour, and he ducks his head, watching as the water drips from his hood. The rain is cold upon his back, but he keeps walking, keeps moving, and when the rain is too difficult to slog through, he takes shelter under a nearby tree.

***

He’s panicking by the time Rhodey returns his call.

Before Rhodey can say much, however, Tony says immediately, “Peter’s missing.”

It isn’t the desperation in Tony’s voice, nor the actual words that cause Rhodey to stop in his tracks, look around the hallway, and say “oh shit.” It’s the use of Peter’s name. He shakes his head a little to clear the fog from his mind. “What do you mean ‘missing?’ People don’t just disappear.”

“That’s the problem.” Tony sighs, and Rhodey can hear the tremor in his voice. “He’s not there. He didn’t go to school today, and there was no suspicious activity on the surveillance cameras around his apartment complex. I even checked to see if someone had hacked in and left it on loop, but there was nothing to point to that.”

Rhodey’s feet start to move of their own accord. “You think he’s been taken?”

Tony has never sounded so defeated as he does when he asks, “What else would it have been?”

And he has to admit, Tony has a point. If anyone wanted to get to Tony, to break him, the easiest way to do that was by taking Peter away from him. Rhodey licks his lips. “It’s not exactly…likely, but could he have run away?”

“I thought about that, but he didn’t leave a note. He wouldn’t just leave, Rhodes.”

“Is anything missing from his room? Like his phone or his suit or something?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Get May to check every inch of his room for something that’s missing. Books, pairs of underwear, stuff like that. Where’s his phone?”

He hears clicks over the receiver. “His phone shows up at his apartment. Same place as his suit.”

“Shit,” Rhodey says. He rubs his forehead. “Any signs of a struggle? Books knocked over, random blemishes in the walls that weren’t there before.”

“I haven’t – I haven’t been to his place, Rhodes. I can’t – if he’s not there, if I somehow had a part in this happening…I can’t face it, man.”

Rhodey sighs. “If you want to find him again, you’re going to have to exhaust all your options.”

For the first time since the war, Rhodey hears Tony sob. “You’re right.”

He nods. “And Tones?”

“What?”

“If you need to, call me. I’m always here for you, buddy.”

***

He pulls his jacket closer to his body. He cowers underneath the protection of the tree, but raindrops drip from the leaves and onto his person. The cold begins traveling into his bones, but he refuses to admit defeat, refuses to turn around and head back.

He knows that they’ll think it was a kidnapping. He knows that Tony and May and possibly Happy will exhaust every single option until they come up empty-handed, until Tony will be forced to turn around, look May in the eyes, and admit defeat.

(Peter doesn’t think of how much that will break either of them. He doesn’t think of the heartbreak he caused May, the panic he inflicted upon Tony. He doesn’t. He can’t.)

He reaches up and tugs his hood to cover part of his cheek. A drop of rain falls onto his face and slithers down the smooth skin of his cheekbone, down his nose, and he’s not sure – when it creates a path – if it really was a drop of rain or his tears.

When his body jerks violently with a shiver racing up his spine, he reminds himself that he’s going to be on his own until they forget about him. What he’s doing, he’s protecting them. So they don’t have to remember him, remember how broken he is.

(He knows they won’t ever forget him. Until their final breath, they will keep searching, keep praying, keep hoping. No, he tells himself, they can’t forget him.

No matter how much he wishes they could.)


	2. Atlas and the Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s not Atlas. He can’t carry the world on his shoulders. And yet, the universe thinks he can.
> 
> But when he looks at MJ and Ned, and he realizes that they’ll be dragged into this, he wants to push back against the deal he made with the universe because he’s not –
> 
> He’s not strong enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re wondering what made Peter run away in the first place, it is briefly mentioned here. This is set AFTER Infinity War. The war against Thanos has been won. Peter has extreme PTSD from it. If there are further questions, check the tags first, and if you’re still confused, then ask. As long as they’re not spoilers, I’d be glad to answer.

It’s Michelle who bursts through the doors of the Tower, making a beeline for the lab. By the time FRIDAY alerts him to her arrival, she’s standing in front of the lab doors, rapping on the metal frame with an annoyed expression on her face.

He unlocks the doors, and she comes barrelling in. “What the hell did you do with Parker?”

So much for subtlety.

Tony stands up. “I haven’t done anything.”

She crosses her arms, rocks up on her tiptoes, and sets her jaw. “Well, why the hell wasn’t he at school? He wasn’t sick yesterday. He’s not out of town. _You_ didn’t do anything to him. Where is he?”

Tony scrubs a hand over his face. “I have not had enough coffee for this.”

“Just answer the question!”

Tony throws his hands up. “I don’t know, MJ! I don’t know! What do you want to hear from me, that I know exactly where he is? I wish I did. I wish I didn’t have to comb through every boring surveillance footage to look for him, but I can’t find him, I don’t know where he is!”

She tilts her head, and for the briefest moment, the anger disappears from her eyes. “What’s going on, Tony?”

He licks his lips and sighs, gripping her bicep and partially dragging her out of the lab. “Call your friend Ned. He’ll need to be there for this. Tell him to meet up at May’s apartment. I’m going to change into something less disgusting, and then you and I will head over there.”

Michelle nods, and Tony doesn’t think he’s ever seen her so grave. She pulls out her phone and dials Ned’s number. “Hey, Ned? Yeah, I’m fine. Just…yeah, I know. I know. Just head over to Peter’s apartment. No, I don’t know what’s going on. We’ll find out there. Thanks. You too.”

Tony hurries up the steps, and once they’re on the main floor, he sprints to his room, quickly changing out of his sweats and grease-stained shirt into a pair of washed-out jeans and a white t-shirt. When he walks out, he finds MJ biting her thumbnail.

“He’ll be fine,” he assures her, gesturing in the direction of the elevators. “He probably snuck out last night and got hammered.”

She looks up at him with a little bit of hope in her eyes. “What if that’s what happened?”

“Then I’m going to murder him. Plain and simple. He and I have had a talk about this. Drugs and alcohol are unacceptable.”

Somehow, that makes her smile.

The ride to May’s apartment is…heavy, to say the least. Happy doesn’t speak, but Tony can see it in his eyes, can see the self-hatred as Happy runs through every possible scenario, trying to pick apart where he could have helped. Tony wants to tell him to just give it up – he’s not going to find anything. There’s nothing in any of Peter’s past voicemails or calls that implied a threat. There’s nothing about why he would think about running away. And Tony wishes he knew the answer, wishes he could call up Clint – who _has_ dealt with teenagers on the regular – but Clint’s dead, and Tony doesn’t know what to do.

So he sits in the backseat of his car, and he tries to hide the way his hands shake.

***

His clothes are crusty by the time he reaches a motel. He runs a hand through his hair, trying to make it look like he hasn’t actively been running away, but it doesn’t do much. He still looks like he’s homeless, and it’s a fleeting thought as he realizes that he really is homeless.

He walks into the front lobby, and he notices the faded carpet with its orange and yellow pattern almost immediately. The lady at the reception desk takes a drag of her cigarette, and Peter’s eyes trail up the walls, finding pieces of chipped paint and sloppily-covered holes. Peter shakes his head and turns to the reception lady.

“I’d like to rent a room,” he says, digging into his pocket for some of his (Tony’s) money.

The lady – Angie, her name tag reads – takes another drag of her cigarette and clicks away on the keyboard. “Name?” she asks.

Some of Peter’s curls fall into his eyes, and he unconsciously pushes them away with his hand. “Logan Reynolds.” He looks around the small lobby again and rocks up on the balls of his feet.

“How long?”

“Just one night, please.”

He’s surprised that she doesn’t ask for an ID. He supposes that she would have, had he not been paying with cash, but she just takes the hundred dollar bill and slides him his key card. He takes it and nods at her, heading in the direction of room 113.

The door, just like everything else in this building, is falling apart. He doesn’t even need the key – if he were to apply just a little bit of force, he could push open the door.

He doesn’t.

He looks at the chipped paint, the streaks of white and whiter, the way the door rests of its hinges, and he sticks the key card into the slot before he walks in.

The door closes behind him, and he stands in the middle of an empty room, rocking up on the balls of his feet, and he tries to convince himself that he’s okay with the loneliness.

***

May fusses with the cookies for the hundredth time, and somewhere in Tony’s mind, he makes the decision to reach out and grab her hand as a gentle way of telling her to stop; it won’t bring him home.

May nods, sitting back against the leather couch with a shaky breath. MJ and Ned sit on either side of her, and it’s with a morbid sort of humor that Tony thinks they look like they’ve just been called down to the principal’s office. MJ reaches up and rubs her nose with her index finger. Ned’s leg jerks up and down as he nervously wrings his hands. May presses her lips tightly together.

Tony sighs heavily. It’s not lost on him – the idea that right now, he’s the strong one. He’s the one who’s trusted to deliver the news, trusted to pick up the pieces of the broken teenagers, trusted to do it without his voice shaking. He waits as the world shifts, as it tries to balance itself on his shoulders.

He nods once. “Um, Ned, MJ…” He waits until they look at him, with the hint of hope still shimmering in their eyes, the way the stars outside once offered him hope, the way the stars almost comforted him before he died. He sees the waves crashing against the rocks in MJ’s eyes, sees the rolling ocean underneath Ned’s. He feels his bones fill with lead, and for a moment, he’s rendered speechless. “As you know, Peter’s missing. We don’t know where he is. Rhodey and I have been running surveillance footage, but um…” He licks his lips. “It’s – we don’t know. There’s a chance –” And here it is, he _isn’t_ strong enough, he won’t ever be strong enough to admit this.

MJ dips her head, but somewhere, Ned finds the courage to catch Tony’s eye and ask, “Did someone take him?”

Tony stares at the ground, methodically running his right thumb over the back of his left hand. The world presses down on his shoulders, and he grimaces under its weight. It’s painful, and it feels like there will be bruises tomorrow. But he nods his head and answers, “We think so. It’s the most plausible option. There’s always a chance –” he stops himself short before he can admit the underlying fear, the fear that feels like ocean waves rising up and crashing against his lungs, his chest. He sighs again and pushes through it, trying to ignore the weight of the world as it becomes heavier and heavier.

“There’s always a chance that he could have run away, or…” Tony closes his eyes, trying not to picture Peter Parker lying in an abandoned alley, blood streaming from his chest. “He could have committed suicide. Right now, we don’t know. We just know he isn’t here.”

MJ’s eyes are red when she finally looks up, and that’s where he sees the anger, the boiling fear that threatens to escalate until it breaks the dam. Her voice is ice cold when she says, “And you automatically apply Murphy’s law to the whole damn thing?”

He hates himself a little bit more as he answers, “I’m just saying we need to be prepared for every possible scenario.”

***

He doesn’t take the covers off the bed when he lies down to rest. He leaves his shoes on, and he lays on his side as he stares at the wall. Whenever he blinks, he can see Tony reaching for him, Tony risking his life for him. In this unsettling darkness, he sees how Tony dragged him out of a war, sees the tears in the man’s eyes as he begs Peter to go home. In the grainy specks that pop up against his eyelids, he sees the stars – he sees the destruction they’ve caused, sees how scared they made Tony, sees how they were used to wreak death upon the Avengers.

He shakes his head against the memories, pulling his jacket closer to his body. When he looks back at the wall, he sees people dying under his watch, sees how his carelessness and PTSD caused the deaths of others. He turns to Tony, pleading with him, begging him to help, telling him that he didn’t mean to do this at all, but Tony just sends him away with a stern word and begins to clean up the mess.

Two weeks ago, and he still feels like it was yesterday.

Peter huffs and rolls to his other side. It’s times like these that he wishes he had his phone with him to drown out the memories, but he can’t have it, not now. They’ll find him. They need to forget him. Ned and MJ and May and Tony…

They need –

They need to forget him.

Ned needs a friend who won’t destroy him, a friend who doesn’t have to cancel plans to watch Star Wars because it triggers his PTSD. He needs a friend who doesn’t have panic attacks at three in the morning, when Ned needs to talk him through it, when he needs to endure however Peter unconsciously reacts. He needs a friend who doesn’t have to skip school every other day because the space in his brain is so preoccupied with death and chaos and destruction, he deserves not to have to take notes for the two of them, he deserves to have a friend who is _healthy_. Peter isn’t.

And MJ…

She doesn’t deserve to worry over whether or not he is going to come home. She doesn’t deserve to patch up his bloodied hands and side. She deserves more – she deserves a man who can make her laugh, a man who will keep up with every book she ever read. She deserves something more than a boy like Peter clinging to her tightly in his bed because she grounds him, she reminds him even on the worst nights that Thanos hadn’t destroyed everything. She doesn’t deserve to talk him through panic attacks, and she doesn’t deserve the looks sent her way whenever she’ll drag him into one of the school bathrooms so he can escape the sensory overload. She deserves more than a boy to whom she has to sing lullabies to draw him out of himself, to make sure his breathing steadies, to watch as his hands finally stop shaking. She deserves someone who can be with her without fear of the future. That just…it’s not him.

May has paid the price for the sins of his parents, and she is still grieving over Ben. She needs someone Peter isn’t – she needs a whole nephew, not one who is broken and in need of saving.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that Tony deserves more than a kid who screws up every other Tuesday, a kid who doesn’t exacerbate his pre-existing heart condition, a kid that doesn’t give Tony more nightmares to sleep through. Tony needs a better intern. He needs a better son.

Peter pulls his hood up to cover his curls, and he reminds himself to shower in the morning.

***

Tony doesn’t sleep.

He makes himself a cup of coffee before he retreats to his lab. Rhodey’s already there, waiting for him.

“I’ve got nothing,” Rhodey says, and Tony can hear the effort it takes for him to admit that.

He takes a drink of the burning coffee, and the bitterness scratches against the back of his throat. “Police find anything?” He can’t think of the alternative, can’t entertain the idea that keeps pushing itself to the front of his mind, that keeps whispering its validity. Tony gestures with his mug. “Activity in previously abandoned buildings, suspiciously stolen cars, etc.?”

Rhodey shakes his head. “The police have pulled up nothing.” His eyes flicker to the label on Tony’s coffee mug, and he sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get some sleep? I’ve got this covered.”

Tony shakes his head and pulls up a chair. “No,” he says. “I can’t sleep until I know…until we know where he is, I can’t get the… _idea_ out of my mind that –” he licks his lips, and for the first time in years, he feels the telltale signs of crying. “That maybe he chose this. Maybe he ran away. And if he ran away, I can’t find him.”

Rhodey puts his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “He’ll be alright, Tones.”

Tony scoffs and takes another swig of coffee. “Runaway or kidnapped, either way, he isn’t going to be okay. Not again.”

“He’s got you in his corner, doesn’t he?”

Tony looks at Rhodey and offers him the ghost of a smile. “I don’t know where he is, Rhodes.”

Rhodey hangs his head. “Listen, man, we’re approaching this wrong. Alright? I’ll cover the kidnapping possibility, you cover the running away.”

“As someone who has been kidnapped at least thirty-two times, I think I have a bit more expertise in that area.” He’s trying to alleviate the pressure on his shoulders. The world presses down upon him, and with each passing second, it forces him further and further to his knees. He can’t hold the world forever. His hands shake under its weight.

Rhodey shakes his head. “You’re also the one who wanted to run away before,” he whispers.

In the silence, in the darkness, those words feel like an ocean rising up in his chest and slamming against his lungs. It hurts and it chokes him. He doesn’t deny the truth – he can’t, and especially not to Rhodey. Rhodey already knows.

Rhodey nods almost imperceptibly. “He does everything you do, Tones. We might – we might be able to save him this way.”

Tony sips his coffee and scoots closer to one of the computers. “FRIDAY, pull up country roads in the state of New York.”

He has no idea that down in Williamstown, Peter Parker cannot sleep either.


	3. Lost Won’t Be Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re all hurting. Tony tries every last possibility. Michelle and Ned have to go to school and face a crowd that doesn’t know their pain. Peter wants to give up this charade.
> 
> But he keeps running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I’m still going to write this fic, but I need feedback. I don’t know if you guys like it or not or what I could do so that you guys enjoy it more. Comment here or go to my tumblr (@ my-glasses-are-dirty). If you want, send a DM to my instagram (same user as here). Please, guys. This isn’t easy to write.

His movements are slow and painful when he tries to climb off the bed. His muscles protest against it, and a shiver races up his spine and down his arms. He pops his neck as he walks into the bathroom. In the mirror, a boy with a gray face and heavy-laden eyes stares back at him. When Peter tilts his head to the left, the reflection tilts its head to the right. The boy in the mirror looks sick, looks like he’ll keel over at any moment. His hair presses flat against his scalp, and when Peter reaches up to rub his nose, the boy in the mirror points out how red it is. He points out the rims of red around Peter’s own eyes, and Peter hangs his head as he strips off his clumped clothes.

He has to jiggle the shower knob for it to move anywhere. There’s approximately eight minutes of hot water, but he keeps it as cold as possible. The water is ice cold upon his back, and he flinches against it, remembering for a moment the Hudson and the parachute that closed over his mouth.

 _Maybe it would have been for the better,_ he thinks as he runs his hand through his wet hair. _Then none of this would ever have happened._

He doesn’t have shampoo or soap on him, and the little motel is short on money, so he just stands under the shower head, letting the cold droplets of water drip from his hair and down his nose. His body jerks violently with the shivers that try and warm him up, and he just wants to _scream_ at his own body, wants to tell it to stop doing what it was designed to do – he wants it to just let him expire, but it won’t, and it wouldn’t have, even before the spider bite.

He stands there for five minutes, or maybe it’s twenty, but he climbs out and grabs the musty towel folded on top of the counter. His hair drips and he scrubs his scalp out of habit, not out of want. He leaves his crusty clothes where they are before he walks out into his room and grabs clean underwear, a pair of jeans, and a t-shirt. He doesn’t have any more sweatshirts, he thinks to himself.

When he’s done getting dressed, and once he’s brushed his teeth, he scoops up his dirty clothes in one hand, stuffs them in his duffel, and turns off the light behind him.

He throws the clothes away in a nearby trash can.

***

Like most of the others, she doesn’t sleep that night. How could she? It’s not like she can text Peter and tell him that she can’t sleep, that she had a nightmare. He’s always been there to hold her up when she couldn’t even lift her own head, and now, he’s just…he’s not here.

In the dark, she stares at the ceiling with her covers pulled up to her chin, trying to think back to every single conversation they’d had in the past month or so. He doesn’t have many enemies – aside from Gargan, she can’t think of anyone who would kidnap him. And then she thinks of his not-so-secret mentor Tony Stark, and the fact that Peter is the first intern at Stark Industries in years, and she wonders if maybe it was one of Tony’s enemies.

But they would have narrowed it down by now.

She rolls onto her side and looks at her phone, where the numbers on the clock blare 3:14. She won’t fall asleep when her heart is racing with worry, so she rolls out of bed, turns on her bedside lamp, and picks up her physics book.

She doesn’t want to imagine going to school and facing the crowds, where she might have to tell the teachers and principal that Peter is missing, that he might be dead by now. Even with the most high-tech equipment in the country, they can’t even begin to figure out where Peter is. If they had a bloodhound, maybe, maybe the perpetrator wasn’t smart enough to account for smell –

Wait.

She sits up fully and reaches for her phone, awkwardly knocking a couple of books off her nightstand. With shaking hands, she scrolls through her contacts until she finds Tony’s, and she types out a short message to him.

**What if we used a dog?**

She can almost see Tony staring at it, can almost see the emotional turmoil going through his head.

**you know anyone who has a dog?**

***

It’s fruitless, he immediately discovers. A dog is only useful for land travel. It can’t account for cars or webs. And Peter is smart – _if_ he ran away, he wouldn’t do it all by foot. He’d use his webs to get out of the city, and _then_ he might start traveling by foot.

He and Rhodey have split up with two different dogs, courtesy of one of the shelters. Theo looks up at him excitedly, and Tony reaches out to rub his head. Happy’s driving them out to one of the country roads outside of New York City, and Tony hates that he remembers the rain, hates that rain washes away everything. Their hope is dwindling.

When Happy stops the car, Tony gets out of the car and calls for Theo to follow him. Theo jumps out of the car, and Tony clips a leash to Theo’s collar. Before they can take off, Rhodey calls him.

“Right now, we’ve got nothing in New York,” he says by way of greeting. “If it was a kidnapping, the perp covered his tracks well.”

Tony scoffs. “Yeah, well, it’s New York City. It’s the best place to kidnap someone.”

“We’ll find him,” Rhodey reminds him. “And, Tones?”

“Yeah?”

“Put yourself in his shoes. Where would you run to?” Rhodey’s voice is so gentle, and Tony wants to lean into it, wants to lean into the comforting safety it offers. “Be safe, Tony.”

“Alright. You too.” He hangs up and looks around, trying to think of where he’d go if he was running away.

He gently jerks Theo’s leash and turns the dog south. The stars are cold and black, and Tony fumbles to find the flashlight on his phone.

The world still weighs heavy.

***

The stars have disappeared.

Peter’s grateful for that; truly, he is. It makes it harder for others to find him. Makes it easier for him to disappear.

Thunder rolls, and Peter looks up sharply. There are no clouds. At least, none that he can see. Thunder rolls again, and there’s no flash of lightning, no heaviness in the air to warn of an oncoming storm.

And the thunder keeps rumbling. It comes in waves, from miles away, and it crashes against his ears where he stands.

Thor is breaking his promise.

Peter turns his face to the sky. “Fuck you!” he screams, and maybe it starts raining, or maybe it’s just the tears that start falling down his cheeks. “You promised!” His voice breaks. His throat feels tight. He ducks his head and keeps trudging onward, keeps moving in the direction of Boston. When thunder keeps rolling, keeps alerting others to his presence, Peter merely lifts his middle finger and flips off the god of thunder.

He doesn’t want to be found. Is that too much to ask?

Lightning flashes, and Peter can almost hear Thor begging him, begging him to stop, begging him to turn around, begging him to let the others find him.

Peter keeps his head down and keeps walking. One step in front of the other. He’s chasing escape, and then…then he’s not allowed to. He’s not allowed to run away when things get bad.

That pisses him off.

The lightning keeps flashing and the thunder keeps following and there’s still no threat of rain. But Peter keeps trudging on. Freedom is a flickering light that’s so far away. He can’t see it, but he can feel it, feel it drawing him closer, and he’s trying, he’s trying to get to it, but he’s blindsided by the temptation to go back. To turn around and apologize.

He sobs.

He’s seventeen, lost, and alone. That’s the worst part of it all.

Thunder rolls.

***

She wants to do anything but go to school. As far as anyone at the school is aware, Peter’s just sick or he’s skipping. There’s nothing to it.

But he’s _missing_.

She dutifully gets ready for school, and with a slight hesitation, she chooses to wear the sweatshirt she stole from Peter a month ago. It’s a chore to get dressed, but she does, and when she’s ready, she slings her backpack onto her shoulder and leaves her apartment.

School isn’t any different than normal. Some of her classmates still suck face in the parking lot, and Flash is still obnoxious. She finds Ned in the crowd, and she can tell he’s been crying.

“You didn’t get any sleep last night, did you?” she asks as she opens her locker and takes out her calculus textbook. She’s not sure if she should get the notes and homework for Peter, but now isn’t exactly the time to ask.

Ned shrugs and scuffs the tip of his shoe against the floor. “How could I? He’s all alone out there, lost and scared.” He sniffs and wipes his nose with his sleeve. “I’m worried about him.”

“We all are,” she says in response.

The bell rings, and it’s dull to her ears. It’s habit that pushes her forward in the mass of teenagers, and she doesn’t really sit down at her desk, doesn’t really pull out paper, doesn’t really take notes or pay attention the entire class period. The teacher asks where Peter is. She absently tells him that he’s gone today.

They don’t understand that she means that he’s _gone_ today, that he may be gone tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that until they graduate, until no one except her and Ned remember the name “Peter Parker.”

She works through the practice problems, but her mind is still on Peter. She pictures him cowering in the corner of an abandoned building, eyes wide and begging for someone to save him, but they don’t know where to start, they don’t know how to get him.

She calls him at lunch.

Logically, she knows that he won’t answer and that his phone is now with Tony as he looks for anything that might indicate a threat to run away. She calls Peter’s phone and, as she expected, it goes to voicemail.

“Um, hey! It’s Peter. I’m like – _AHHH!_ – super busy right now, being responsible with life and all that. I totally just blew up something in the lab. It’s cool, I’m good. Um, if you could leave a message, that’d be great. I’ll try and get back to you.”

When she hears the beep, she sniffles and blinks back tears. “Come home, Parker. Please come back home.”

***

He gives up when the sun begins to rise. Theo has lost Peter’s trail, and Tony thinks it was due to the rain. He turns back the way they came, and Theo nudges his head under Tony’s hand, and Tony unconsciously rubs Theo’s head.

He’s lost. He has nothing on Peter, and he has no idea of where to start. It would be nice if Peter had made it into a town, or if he made it to Boston or some other big city already, but –

Wait.

Tony stops in his tracks and looks down at his new dog. “That’s it,” he whispers.

Peter has super-human speed. He could get anywhere in a couple of days while it would take Tony a month. And the web shooters…

He calls May.

“Do you have anything?” she asks in a teary voice.

“Check for his web shooters,” he says immediately.

“What?”

“Big, clunky, and metal. I’ll send you a picture. The ones on the suit I gave him are still there, but if he still had his old ones, I’m thinking that could unlock a key.”

“What makes you think he’d use –”

“He moves faster with them. Factor in superhuman speed _and_ the web shooters, we can narrow down where he’d be by now. If he ran away.”

May perks up, and for the first time in days, she doesn’t sound as hopeless. “Send me a picture.”

Tony gets back to the car, and Happy is sleeping with his back to one of the tires. Tony smiles and gently nudges Happy awake with his foot. “Come on, up and at ‘em. I have a hunch.”

Happy blinks groggily and takes Tony’s proffered hand. “Is it good, boss?”

“I hope so, Happy. I really hope so.”

***

He sticks to the side roads once the sun rises. As an extra measure of caution, he fishes his baseball cap from his duffel and tugs it over his eyes.

He’s so hungry.

He has no idea what he can do for lunch – wandering into any gas station or restaurant will raise some eyebrows, but he needs something before his body starts to digest itself. And it’s not like he doesn’t have money – he could buy out an entire restaurant and still have money to spare.

He never said he had to be healthy – he just had to eat.

Around one, he happens by a gas station and ducks into it. There’s a line for the bathroom, and he tries to wait patiently. He taps his fingers against his thigh and looks around. There’s a pay phone (who even uses those things anymore, he wonders to himself) near the front counter, and he almost entertains the idea of calling his phone or May or Tony or _someone_ , but they’ll track it. They’ll find him. As much as he misses them, he can’t be weak. He can’t give in.

Once he’s taken care of natural bodily functions, he wanders through the aisles and picks up a bag of potato chips, two cups of Ramen, mac-n-cheese, beef jerky, and a small package of Oreos to his collection. The cashier raises an eyebrow at him, and he shrugs. “My mom gave me a list.” He nods outside, and he hopes to God the cashier won’t turn around. “She’s taking care of my little brother right now.”

The cashier simply nods and begins scanning the items. He doesn’t seem fazed by the duffel bag Peter’s clutching in his left hand. “Long trip?”

Peter rocks up on the balls of his feet. “Yep. Visiting my grandparents. My little brother wanted to drive.” He shakes his head and gestures with his free hand. “Crazy, right? It’s like, a ten-hour trip.”

“That sucks.” The cashier finishes ringing up the last item. “I’m guessing you want a bag?”

“Yes, please.”

“Cool. That’ll be $30.58.”

Peter digs in his pocket and pulls out two twenties. “Uh, here. I don’t have any change on me.”

The cashier shakes his head. “Nah, it’s cool. Hold on a sec.” He gets Peter’s change and puts the receipt in the bag, handing it over to Peter. “Here you go.”

Peter looks at him and smiles. “Thank you.”

Once outside, he ducks around the corner and sprints in the direction of the nearest side road. It’s awkward running with a bag in each hand, but when he’s finally free from the gas station, he slows down and fishes in the plastic bag for a snack. Too late, he realizes he should have bought a map.

In a few hours, it’ll be dark again and he’ll need to find a place to rest.

Maybe he should start traveling at night, he thinks to himself as he bites into the beef jerky.

***

Out of every single person in the world, it’s Flash who asks her what’s wrong. It’s almost sweet, except he does it in the middle of Spanish class.

“ _Flash_ ,” the teacher chastises. “Hable en Español.”

He grimaces. “Lo siento, Señora.” He turns back to Michelle, and when the teacher is preoccupied with another student, he leans across the aisle and whispers to MJ, “What’s wrong?”

She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Nothing, Flash. Speak in Spanish.”

“You’re not.”

She huffs and glances to see if Sra. Garcia is still preoccupied. “It’s not your business, Flash.”

“Listen, I get I’m a jerk, but there’s something off. You’re never…like this, Michelle.”

She grits her teeth and shakes her head once. “Maybe it’s because Peter’s gone missing, but that’s just me.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

She did it. She told Flash.

Flash furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“Flash! Hable en Español!”

Flash holds his hands up in surrender. “Lo siento, lo siento.” He straightens up, and she can see the way his face falls.

 _Missing_.

It’s not a word that goes with Peter Parker.

The bell rings, and she faintly registers the kids throwing their books in their backpacks. It’s the end of the day, and she should be itching to get home, but instead, she weaves her way through the teenagers until she finds herself standing at her government teacher’s door.

He almost runs into her when he walks out. “Michelle,” he says with a smile, “what are you doing here? How’s senior year treating you?”

She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Coach?”

He has athletics to teach – coach, whatever – after school, but he pushes open his door and turns the lights back on. “Yeah, of course.” She steps inside the classroom and drops her bag by one of the desks in the first row. Coach Bauer leans against the wall. “What is it, Michelle?”

She takes a shaky breath and looks around the classroom. It’s been a year since she last set foot in here. She got an A in this class. She and Peter were the same side in a debate. “It’s – I just…I don’t know.”

Bauer nods his head. “Yes, you do.”

She sniffles and looks up at the ceiling. The lights are too bright. They’ve always been too bright. “Peter’s missing. We don’t know if he’s –”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.” Bauer pushes himself off the wall. “Peter’s _missing_?”

She nods. “He went missing two nights ago.”

“Do they know what’s happened to him?”

She shakes her head. “No, but, uh, Tony – Mr. Stark, sorry – thinks he might have been kidnapped.”

Coach Bauer’s eyes widen and he takes in a shaky breath, covering his mouth with his right hand. “That’s – that’s not good.” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Did you file a missing person report?”

Michelle is caught off-guard for a moment. “Um…uh, yeah. I think May did.”

A lot of thoughts are going through Bauer’s mind, but he finally stops his worrying for a second to look over at Michelle. “How’re you taking it?”

She presses her lips tightly together and shakes her head. “I miss him,” she sobs, and Coach Bauer pulls her into his side.

“He’ll be okay. I promise, Michelle, he’ll be okay.”

***

_He’ll be okay._

Tony repeats it like a mantra as he scans through maps of New England. He finds a small town close to the New York-Massachusetts border that experienced heavy lightning despite a clear night. He bookmarks the tab.

_He’ll be okay._

He whispers it to himself when he stands to go get another pot of coffee. He’s foregone sleep for the better part of sixty hours, and he doesn’t plan to get any rest anytime soon. He sways when he stands, and he has to grip the edge of the desk until his vision stops dancing. Rhodey stretches out a hand to help steady him.

_He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay._

He only stops tracking Peter long enough to feed Theo. He wants to pull the dog into his arms and hold him and cry into his fur, but if his life is anything to go by, Theo will run away. Just like Peter did. Just like everyone else does.

_He has to be okay._

The words have lost the comforting weight they once possessed. When he hits a dead end, he feels as the world delivers the final punishing blow that forces him to his knees, and he’s crouching, holding the world in trembling hands.

(He can’t hold on forever.)

_Peter will be okay._

It’s a lie, it’s all a lie. Kidnapped, lost, running away, whatever it is, Peter’s not around and Tony can’t find him.

At the seventy-two hour mark, Rhodey sends him to bed, threatening to sedate him if he doesn’t close his eyes. Tony rolls his eyes but thanks Rhodey for the concern. (He doesn’t thank Rhodey for the out he’s offering him, but he knows Rhodey knows. He can’t thank him for that yet. But he’s trying).

He dreams.

He dreams of a life he never had, a world where he was never the son of Howard Stark, CEO of Stark Industries. He dreams of being a normal man with a normal life, settling down and getting married. He has a son. A son with a bright smile and curly brown hair. They name him Peter Parker Stark. And he’s Tony’s pride and joy.

But he remembers being kidnapped in Afghanistan, remembers the following events – torture and witnessing the deaths of friends. He watches as Peter tries to hold together a ferry that’s splitting in two. He remembers the tears in Peter’s eyes and the pain it caused him to take away the suit. He remembers Peter almost dying, once, twice, three, four times. He remembers crawling to Peter’s side in the middle of a battle, ignoring Rogers screaming in his ear to hold Peter close and whisper that he’s going to be okay, he’s getting out of here. He remembers a boy with severe PTSD screwing up and crying for help, his hands shaking and covered in the blood of a dead man.

That boy is gone now.

In the darkness of his room, Tony reaches up and wipes his eyes. No one needs to know that he was crying.

And he reminds himself:

Peter will be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like it? Love it? Hate it? Leave a comment or go to my tumblr ;)


	4. This is PTSD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hopelessness and trembling and fear. It's memories and avoidance behavior.
> 
> It’s anxiety. It’s insomnia. It’s none of them. It’s all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Infinity War destroyed me. Some spoilers ahead. Who said I couldn't tie in canon?
> 
> (Me. It was me, guys.)

“I don’t care if he hasn’t shown up  _ yet _ , I just need to ask you to call me if and when he does.” Tony holds a picture of Peter in his hand, twirling it between his fingers. “Listen, he’s missing and there’s a possibility that he ran away. If he flies  _ anywhere _ , I want to hear about it.” Finally, the person on the other end asks what Peter looks like. “Um, he has curly brown hair, dark brown eyes. He’s about 5’8” and he’s seventeen years old. He stutters when he gets nervous. What? No, he doesn’t have any identifiable markings. Here, I’ll transfer a picture of him to you. Just call me if you see him. Thank you.”

 

Tony hangs up and tosses his cell phone on the table. It clatters against the wood, and he sighs, burying his face in his hands. He doesn’t know what to do anymore. Peter’s always one step ahead of them, and life would be a  _ hell _ of a lot easier if Peter had just taken his phone, but he’s smarter than that. The only thing anyone has to go off of is the strange appearance of lightning in Williamstown two nights ago.

 

Wait…

 

He sits up straight and reaches for his phone. “FRIDAY, look for any motels or hotels or restaurants in Williamstown, Massachusetts.”

 

Several different places pop up. “Narrow it down to recent activity.” He squints at the holographic image in front of him. “Include cash purchases. Eliminate all credit card usages.”

 

Only a few motels and hotels remain. “Surveillance footage on any of them?”

 

FRIDAY quickly scans through the video surveillance. “None of the hotels have anyone fitting Peter’s description.”

 

Tony nods. “Good. Get rid of those. Let’s focus on the motels. Did you find anything there?”

 

“No. Video surveillance at these motels is uncommon since the events of the War on Thanos.”

 

Something is off. “Pull up cash payments. Show me the registry.”

 

At Cozy Corner Motel, he finds something. A Logan Reynolds rented a room for one night and two nights later, he has yet to check out. “Let’s check out Logan Reynolds. Who is this guy?”

 

FRIDAY pulls up several different profiles for Logan Reynolds. Unsurprisingly, it’s a relatively common name.

 

But most everyone with that name is deceased.

 

Tony furrows his brow and shakes his head. “Call up Cozy Corner. I think that’s our lead.”

 

Before FRIDAY can patch the call through, another call comes in. The number is unfamiliar, but Tony waves his hand for FRIDAY to accept the call.

 

“Hello? This is Tony Stark speaking.”

 

On the other end of the line, he can hear heavy breathing. The other person doesn’t speak.

 

“Hello? Are you going to say anything? If not, I’ve got to take care of something really important –”

 

“Don’t come after me, Tony.”

 

Tony’s blood runs cold. “Why the hell not, Parker?”

 

“You could get hurt,” Peter whispers.

 

Tony looks up at the ceiling, and it takes mere milliseconds for FRIDAY to begin tracing the call. “I’m willing to take my chances, kid. You know, you’re worrying us  _ sick _ .”

 

“I’ve gotta go, Tony –”

 

“Oh, no, you don’t –”

 

The call ends. Tony doesn’t need FRIDAY to tell him that the trace was unsuccessful. He knows. He sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair. “Call up that motel, FRI. Let’s see if we can find out where that little shit went.”

 

***

 

Peter pulls his knees to his chest. He caved, he caved, he caved, he  _ caved _ . He shouldn’t have. He could have just sucked it up and gone on with it all, but no, he  _ had _ to call Tony. He had to give in during a moment of weakness, and as close as he was to freedom, the light has all but died – he can hardly see it anymore, and it’s all his fault because he fucking  _ called _ the very person he’s running away from.

 

A knot forms in his throat and he cries. He cries for the life he’s missed, the life he could have had. He cries for parents long dead, an uncle shot in the chest, an aunt who has gone through too much, a surrogate father with a hole in his heart, two friends who deserve better. He cries for the world and finally, finally, he cries for himself.

 

The clock in his room ticks.

 

He stands abruptly and walks into the bathroom, searching for anything to help his cause.

 

_ Tick, tock, tick, tock. _

 

He doesn’t find what he’s looking for. He just walks back into the bedroom, grabs his duffel, and walks out of his motel room.

 

He won’t come back.

 

_ Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. _

 

He’s going to get to Boston tonight. He has just enough web fluid to manage, and by the time he gets to the airport, he’ll be free.

 

Thunder rumbles, and he looks up to the sky, his eyes full of fire and ice rolled into one. “Stop,” he whispers, and the thunder stops.

 

He positions his bag on his back, webbing the straps together so it won’t fall off. He starts running.

 

_ Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock. _

 

His shoes slap against the asphalt, and he weaves between the street lights. His lungs burn, and he runs faster. One city, two cities, three cities over, and he picks up the pace, flying between houses until he reaches the trees and then he lifts his hand and starts swinging.

 

When the trees become sparse, he drops to his feet and keeps running. His lungs are on fire.

 

He runs.

 

His legs feel like lead.

 

He runs.

 

A dog barks at him.

 

He runs.

 

He closes his eyes just for a second as he’s running, and in the grainy blackness, he sees people from his past.

 

_ Steve. _

 

He remembers Steve holding Thanos back all on his own, remembers how Tony took that time to haul Peter away from the fight. He remembers webbing Steve’s legs in a fight – at an airport, Peter recalls – and he remembers stealing Steve’s shield. He remembers Steve getting ripped apart by the giant Titan, and most of all, he remembers the screams. Haunting and terrible, but most of all, hollow.

 

He runs faster.

 

_ Loki. _

 

He remembers the distrust the rest of the Avengers had surrounding Loki, but he most remembers Loki standing with the Order. He remembers that first bitter taste of betrayal in his mouth seeing Loki stand with the enemy, but he remembers a strong hand on his shoulder, calming him down, telling him that they could beat Loki if need be.

 

Loki turned out alright in the end, he guessed.

 

It was a flash of purple light, and before Peter could move, someone else had already taken the hit. Tony slowed down, not even taking time to mourn Loki’s loss, because Peter was more important in that moment. Peter could hear Tony whispering his thanks to Loki, and he remembers that was the first time he cried in that battle.

 

Peter runs faster.

 

_ Clint. _

 

In the first appearance of the rogue Avenger, Hawkeye showed up with a forced smile and murder in his eyes. His movements were all full of rage, and he remembers Tony yelling at him not to be reckless, to take time and think about his actions. Thanos didn’t even deliver the final blow. It was an accident.  _ His _ accident.

 

Faster. Faster still.

 

_ Bucky. _

 

He remembers the screams. Of a man losing his brother in arms, losing the last connection he had to a life that had long since ended. Of a man being torn apart, piece by piece, as aliens continually descended on him.

 

He keeps running faster.

 

_ Stephen Strange. _

 

Another person sacrificed himself for Peter, another person died right in front of Peter’s eyes. He was unapologetic about it, and all Peter remembers is turning to cry into Tony’s side.

 

He can’t run anymore.

 

He stops, doubling over to catch his breath. He sobs, and his shoulders heave. His legs shake underneath him, and he’s remembering too much, too much, it’s all too much. His knees crumple and he falls to the ground, his head buried in his hands as he keeps crying, keeps mourning for his lost friends, his living friends, his family. He mourns everything, and he wishes with everything he had that he hadn’t survived, that he didn’t have to live with the memories of people dying in front of him,  _ for  _ him.

 

He doesn’t know how long he kneels crying, but when he looks up, he sees the outline of a city. Without more thought, he discards his web shooters and stands.

 

He’s made it into Boston, and tomorrow he’ll be in the Midwest.

 

It’s been a long, long night, even with the stars.

 

***

 

He’s been looking at footage for the past six hours, and there’s nothing – no indication that Peter’s even been to that motel, and as the clock continues to tick, Tony becomes more and more discouraged.

 

There’s no way he’s hit a dead end.

 

FRIDAY alerts him to various meteorological anomalies that seem to follow a certain path. There’s something to that path, and Tony can’t quite place his finger on it. He knows Peter’s out there, that Peter’s alive, but he can’t find where, and that’s all he wants – he doesn’t want to be the hero in this story, he doesn’t want Peter to be Spider-man again; all he wants is for his boy to come back home.

 

He’d be happy with nothing else.

 

The screen doesn’t change. There are no grand flashes of lightning, no rolls of thunder strange enough to register on FRIDAY’s search. With each passing second, Peter runs further and further away, and Tony  _ knows _ .

 

The longer Peter runs, the less likely he is to come back from it –  _ any _ of it – mentally.

 

It’s a thought that scares him, and with a growl, Tony stands abruptly, knocking his chair back into a lab table. On his way out, he grabs the keys to Peter’s car. He doesn’t stop for food, coffee, money, or clothes. He just presses his foot to the gas pedal and drives.

 

He doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t know where he’s going, but he keeps driving. He wants to run away, he wants to be able to stand again and throw the world back at the universe. He’s sick of bearing that weight, and his arms shake, and the weight threatens to crush him. If he can’t get rid of it soon, it will kill him.

 

He drives through the entire state of New York, and for some reason he pulls over to the side of the road, pulls over when he hears a clap of thunder. It sounds like a shout, almost like someone yelled, “Here!” at the top of their lungs, and for some reason he listens to it, for some reason, he gets out of his car and hurries into the motel.

 

He fishes the picture he has of Peter out of his pocket and slams it on the front desk. The receptionist jumps in her seat and almost drops her cigarette.

 

“Did this kid come through here?” Tony runs a hand through his hair, and his eyes are wild as he looks around the rundown motel. It might have been nice at one point, but the war against Thanos destroyed that. Thanos destroyed everything, even Peter Parker.

 

The lady gives him the evil eye and puts out her cigarette. “Uh, yeah, Mister.” She points down the hall. “Took room 113, ‘round that corner. He still needs to check out, though. Don’t know if he’s still here.”

 

Tony bites his top lip. “But he did come here?”

 

“Yeah, what’s it to ya?”

 

Tony takes the picture back and tucks it into his wallet. “That’s my kid.” He leaves without another word, and the lady doesn’t ask who he was or anything further. He stops outside his car and rests his head against the door, and he suddenly feels very weak and very weary. He can’t do this. He can’t handle this. Peter ran away less than a week ago, and Tony can already feel a pain that runs deeper than any he’s felt before. He shakes his head once, wipes his nose with his index finger, and opens the car door.

 

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and it sounds like an ocean wave. Tony looks up to the sky. There are no clouds. It’s a clear night. The thunder rolls again, louder, deeper, desperate, and there’s something about it that causes Tony to get in the car and follow the sound.

 

During long stretches of road, where the living have long since gone to sleep, Tony presses his foot to the floor and drives as fast as the car lets him. Thunder keeps rumbling, keeps rolling, pointing him in the direction of his lost friend.

 

The call comes through at six in the morning, twenty minutes outside of Boston.

 

“We found him,” the TSA agent says. “He came by the airport.”

 

Tony slams on the brakes. The search is over, and he rests his forehead against the steering wheel. “Thank you, God,” he whispers. He sniffles and shakes himself a little. “So I just come pick him up?”

 

“Sir, he just stopped outside. He left as soon as he came.”

 

Tony doesn’t hear anything else. He just opens his car door and throws up on the side of the road.

 

_ Missing. _

 

And now Tony knows, more than ever, that Peter ran away.

 

That hurts him more than anything else.

 

***

 

The sky is black where the stars are supposed to be. He hears the tumbling of the tires, hears the engine’s hum. The bus hits a small bump. It jostles some of the passengers.

 

Peter readjusts his bag and hugs it closer to his chest. He shifts so that he’s curled in his seat, and then he rests his head against the window. His head bounces with the movement of the tires. It’s uncomfortable. He wants to sleep. He won’t.

 

The lady next to him sleeps with her mouth open. In her bag, she tucked away the book  _ Their Eyes Were Watching God _ . MJ recommended that book.

 

He shifts again. He feels cold, but when he looks down at his arms, there are no goosebumps. The cold is  _ in _ his body, traveling through his core. It feels like he’s turning to ice from the inside out, and he can only hope that when he gets far enough away, that ice will thaw.

 

Freedom is nearby, and he can barely feel its warmth.

 

The bus continues to roll on, and Peter closes his eyes in case the lady next to him wakes up. He doesn’t expect to sleep. He expects to remain awake, and for his mind to remind him of his mistakes. He pulls his knees to his chest, and his body freezes immediately.

 

It is insomnia. The feeling of weightlessness while he’s tethered to the ground. The feeling of dust and ash when the wind blows and smoke curls. He can taste the fire on his tongue, can taste how his teeth disintegrated into dust.

 

It is insomnia. The remembrance of the Place where lost souls go. He remembers jostling shoulders with the woman next to him. She doesn’t remember him. Doesn’t know his name. He knows her in the way she sobbed, telling everyone about her grandchildren.

 

It is insomnia. Remembering how he wandered around the Place, where everything was ash and dust. Remembering how to breathe. One in, one out. The steady rise and fall of a chest to symbolize life. Without bodies, no one breathes. No one is alive.

 

It is insomnia. The way he closes his eyes and takes a breath, only to remember the feeling of his nose crumbling into ash. The way he pushes his nightmares out of his mind only for others to resurface. The way he shivers every time he remembers the time loop, remembers reliving the same moment of Tony’s death over and over and over until Strange finally got it right, finally managed for someone else to put themselves in between the flash of gold and Peter.

 

It is insomnia. To remember a dead planet and to remember another, lifeless one. To remember people he’d never even met.

 

It is insomnia. Feeling his body stitching itself back together, painfully. The way his cells knitted themselves together so tightly in the event that he would become dust again.

 

It is insomnia. The feeling of fire while remembering the feeling of ice. It is insomnia, and he doesn’t sleep.

 

***

 

He listens for the rumble of thunder. He turns his face up to the sky, and he begs the god of thunder to point him in Peter’s direction, because he got him this far, just a few more miles won’t hurt. The sky is silent. Thor refuses to speak.

 

In the silence, Tony can hear his heartbeat. Can hear the consistent  _ thump, thump, thump _ that symbolizes his life. It speeds up, and drowns out the sound of his breathing. The blood rushes through his ears. It sounds like the ocean. Like water. Like the Hudson River.

 

He curls up in the seat of his car and presses his forehead to his knees. The sound of water keeps attacking him, so he covers his ears with his hands. The water rushes faster. He’s drowning. His chest tightens, and the skin pulls taut. His heart shatters, breaks, stitches itself together, the way it did time and time again while Strange tried to make sure that Peter was okay.

 

His body trembles. He tries to focus on the sound of his heartbeat, but it’s beating too fast. Every time he focuses in on it, the sound causes him to reel backwards.

 

_ Death. Peter’s death. His own. Steve, Loki, Bucky, Strange, Clint. _

 

He feels sick, and bile rises in his throat when he remembers the words Peter said on that planet.  _ I don’t feel so good. _ Dust and ash, mixing together.

 

He squeezes his eyes shut. Spots dance behind his eyelids, and he thinks of space. Bacteria. He sees orange, and he’s reminded of the wasteland that he escaped. Orange, red, blood and heartbeats. Dust and ash and people disappearing.

 

His breathing quickens. His lungs ache. He remembers the feeling of his own weapon piercing through his lung, remembers how the weapon pierced through his entire body. The tissue tore apart, shreds dangling inside his body. The nanobots repaired the opening. They didn’t repair the wound.

 

He remembers crying. Remembers how painful it was to hold that hand to his chest, how painful it was to cry when his lung was torn in two. Fighting was worse. And he had to fight again and again and again. Time stopped, restarted, right before he died.

 

This is anxiety. Memories that forever plague you, that cause you to curl into a ball and pray that God will have mercy on you. Whispered prayers, broken tears, hands clamped over your ears. Rocking back and forth, biting your lip, listening to your own erratic heartbeat.

 

This is anxiety. Fast breaths, shallow breaths that send of spikes of electrical signals in the brain. Breaths that speed up when your heartbeat does. The sound of hollow, shaky, trembling breaths. A whistle in the broken lung. The body trying to sew itself back together.

 

This is anxiety. Darkness, but colors that dot the blackness. The colors remind you of things, remind you of memories that cannot be suppressed. Green is time. Orange is a deserted planet. Brown is the color of death, the color of dust and ash and lifelessness.

 

This is anxiety. Trembling in the seat of your car, like you’re cold. You’re not cold. You’re burning up. Your forehead feels warm. You want to cry. You can’t.

 

***

 

It’s not anxiety. It’s not insomnia.

 

It’s memories. It’s avoiding certain places and certain colors. It’s wrapping yourself in warm blankets because you don’t want to think of fire.

 

It’s trembling when hope is lost. It’s retreating into your own mind, where the war can never be won. It’s praying when you know God won’t answer.

 

It’s anxiety. It’s insomnia. It’s none of them. It’s all of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Purty much all inspired by the band "Sleeping At Last." They have quality angst songs.

**Author's Note:**

> If any of you want to check out the songs I listened to in order to write this fic, I found a playlist on YouTube and I’m including the link below.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoOhIp206GZeszbna_kPa5l-UCeyyFJ0R


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